Trainspotting Movie Trailers and Reviews

Trainspotting (1996)

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald, Peter Mullan, James Cosmo

Director: Danny Boyle

Release Date: July 19th, 1996
Release Date: 23rd February, 1996

Synopsis: A wild, freeform, Rabelaisian trip through the darkest recesses of Edinburgh low-life, focusing on Mark Renton and his attempt to give up his heroin habit, and how the latter affects his relationship with family and friends: Sean Connery wannabe Sick Boy, dimbulb Spud, psycho Begbie, 14-year-old girlfriend Diane, and clean-cut athlete Tommy, who’s never touched drugs but can’t help being curious about them.

Status:

About the Movie

Trainspotting is a 1996 film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life. The film stars Ewan McGregor as Mark Renton, Ewen Bremner as Spud, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, Kevin McKidd as Tommy, Robert Carlyle as Begbie, and Kelly Macdonald as Diane. Author Irvine Welsh also has a cameo appearance as hapless drug dealer Mikey Forrester.

The Academy Award-nominated screenplay, by John Hodge, was adapted from Welsh’s novel. It does not contain any references to the hobby of train spotting. The title is a reference to an episode in the original book (not included in the film) where Begbie and Renton meet “an auld drunkard” who turns out to be Begbie’s estranged father, in the disused Leith Central railway station, which they are visiting to use as a toilet. He asks them if they are “trainspottin’.” Beyond drug addiction, other concurrent themes in the film are exploration of the urban poverty and squalor, in “culturally rich” Edinburgh.

The film has been ranked 10th spot by the British Film Institute (BFI) in its list of Top 100 British films of all time. In 2004 the film was voted the best Scottish film of all time.